Month: March 2010

SAN FRANCISCO, NEW YORK–January 2010 leadership changes at
both the Sierra Club and the National Audubon Society appear to leave
both organizations squarely in the hunter/conservationist camp.
Michael Brune, 38, heading the Rainforest Action Network
since 2003, succeeded Carl Pope as executive director of the Sierra
Club, but Pope remained the senior figure in the organization, as
executive board chair.
Holding undergraduate degrees in economics and finance,
Brune previously worked for Greenpeace and the Coastal Rainforest
Coalition, now called ForestEthics.

Ape, by Brock University sociologist and professor of
critical animal studies John Sorenson, is the 25th in a projected
series of 40 titles edited for Reaktion Books Ltd. by Jonathan Burt.
Burt himself produced the series template in Rat (2006). Each volume
is succinctly titled for the species or order of animals that it
covers. Each summarizes the state of knowledge about how the animals
behave, where they live, and how they evolved, but the focal topic
is the influence of the animals on human culture.

TIPTON, Pennsylvania–Dogs Deserve Better founder Tamira Ci
Thayne told ANIMAL PEOPLE on February 17, 2010 that she expects to
appeal a trespassing conviction adjudicated against her the day
before by Portage magistrate Galen Decort.
Decort fined Thayne $25 plus $167 court costs for allegedly
remaining on the property of Jason and Krystal Cann, of Lilly,
Pennsylvania, after being ordered to leave.
Decort dismissed Thayne’s video of the incident on grounds
that a video might be altered.

Godofredo Stutzin, 93, died on February 11, 2010 at his
home in Chile. Born in Germany, originally surnamed Lipinski,
Stutzin fled to Chile in 1935, at age 19. Becoming an attorney,
Stutzin founded the Union of Friends & Animals in 1955, and the
National Committee for the Defense of Fauna & Flora in 1967. For
decades Stutzin served as Chilean representative to the Animal
Welfare Institute, the International Primate Protection League, and
the International Union for the Conservation of Nature. Stutzin was
perhaps best known for his 1976 effort to protect Lake Chungara,
located at the highest elevation of any lake in the world, but his
first concern was animal welfare. As well as advocating for fish in
the wild, Stutzin spoke forcefully and often against both
recreational fishing and keeping pet fish. “Stutzin almost
single-handedly created the modern environmental/animal protection
movement in South America,” recalled ANIMAL PEOPLE web producer
Patrice Greanville. “He was my friend, one of those that neither
distance nor time could diminish in affection or stature.”Read more

FRESNO, CORVALLIS–Air-craft accidents during wildlife
population counts killed five wildlife agency workers in two weeks in
January 2010.
California Department of Fish & Game biologists Clu Cotter
and Kevin O’Connor, and scientists’ aide Tom Stolberg, died on
January 4 when their helicopter hit a power line while they were
counting deer near Redinger Lake, in the Sierra National Forest.

The DNA of the great apes and humans differs by only a hair.
Desmond Morris and Steve Parker in Planet Ape show us the
similarities between humans and the other great apes, especially in
behavior such as tool-making, using politics to gain community
influence, and killing other species for food. We differ most
prominently in that humans are bipedal, walking upright while other
great apes walk upright only for short distances. Also, humans lost
the heavy coat of fur characterizing other apes, and now wear
clothes. Well, most of us do.

“Animals were integral to Mark Twain’s
work as a writer from the first story that earned
him national renown to pieces he wrote during his
final years that remained unpublished at his
death,” notes Shelley Fisher Fishkin. “Twain is
famous for having crafted amusing and mordant
quips about animalsŠHe is less known for being
the most prominent American of his day to throw
his weight firmly behind the movement for animal
welfare.”

JAKARTA–The Year of the Tiger on the Chinese calendar opened
on February 14, 2010 with schemes to “save” tigers that posed
perhaps a greater threat to tiger welfare and wild tiger survival
than even aggressive poaching that has cut the wild tiger population
in half since the last Year of the Tiger in 1998.
For nine days in January 2010 the Indonesian wildlife
protection organization ProFauna enjoyed a rare victory against both
tiger poaching and the exploitation of captive tigers. ProFauna
helped to send the most brazen tiger poacher in memory to prison,
for the August 22, 2009 pre-dawn killing and butchery of a
20-year-old tiger named Sheila in her cage at the Taman Rimba Zoo in
Jambi, capital of Jambi province.

MIAMI–Conservationists rushed to help endangered sea turtles
and manatees during one of the coldest winters on record in Florida,
but many vocally hoped that the January 2010 cold snaps would
extirpate non-native iguanas and pythons.
“Anecdotally, we might have lost maybe half of the pythons,”
Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission exotic species
coordinator Scott Hardin told David Fleshler and Lisa J. Huriash of
the South Florida Sun-Sentinel in mid-February, after several weeks
of doing habitat assessment.

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